May 2011 – A Whirlpool in Tucana

This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the galaxy NGC 406 in the constellation of Tucana. It exhibits spiral arms that are mainly populated by young, massive, bluish stars and crossed by dark dust lanes. As is typically observed in this kind of spiral galaxy, the yellowish central bulge, dominated by an older stellarpopulation, is less prominent and almost totally embedded in the disk structure.